As the main growing season winds down, and the days are much shorter, we’ve been surprised with this very warm, dry weather. We’ve had quite a few freezes in Potter Valley now, which has ended the fragile summer crops and killed the aphids. We have been keeping the melons under protective row cover, so we’re still able to enjoy the fruity juiciness these hot afternoons. Honeydew melon is packed with Vitamin C, so enjoy!

We also have an onslaught of winter squash and pie pumpkins. There are so many varieties of winter squash, it’s sometimes hard to choose what to plant. Hokkaido Stella Blue Hubbard Squash keeps for a very long time – as in months – on your kitchen counter or in the garage. It has an orange, flakey flesh and can be enjoyed in soups or as roasted. Here’s more about storing and using hubbards: http://www.finecooking.com/item/5903/hubbard-squash

As next week is the last Main Season Vegetable CSA distribution, we want to send you off with a bounty of storable winter squash – so when we really hit chilly fall and winter, you can continue to be nourished with local food. Plan to grab as much as you want at next week’s distribution. If you want 100 lb or so, let us know, and you can come by the ranch to pick it up. We definitely have enough for everyone to take that much!

Spaghetti Squash does not keep as long as the other squashes. It produced very well this year and is a fun substitute for spaghetti pasta. If you’re new to Spaghetti Squash or want some new ideas on what to do with it, Martha has tips for it, too:

So, be sure to bring a box or two and are able to cart home your winter squash next week!

Notes from the Field

The Maize Harvest Party a couple weeks ago was a delicious and fun success, just as we had hoped. All the corn is harvested and in the corn crib at Heart Arrow Ranch. Let us know if you want to order corn or join The Corn Crib as a Corn CSA member. Corn will be available starting in January 2014.

All of the winter squash is getting taken out of the field, and we are generally wrapping up the main growing season. This warm weather has been wonderful for getting winter crops going, before the days are too short for anything to grow. However, we could really use some rain. The light rain earlier this month has helped the rangeland grasses to start, but we need more. Like some other local ranchers, we are already dipping into our hay stores to keep our cattle and sheep fed. The sheep livestock barn and pig farrowing pens are completed now, and sometime soon, a solar system installation person is coming to start work. The handling facilities for our cattle have been drawn out, and a flat pad has been scraped in preparation of building them. We are raising a relatively small herd of cattle (less than 30 cows), so our facilities are simple, and we have referenced Temple Grandin’s humane handling facility designs.

We are working with Rainbow Ag in Ukiah to design the irrigation system for the new fruit orchard and table grape vineyard at Heart Arrow Ranch. And if you have come by the ranch lately, you will have noticed that our landlord is well into renovating (i.e. tearing down half and building anew) the tractor shop. The shop is where our office and meat freezers are located, so we will have to move out temporarily sometime this fall/winter until the building is complete. Along with enlarging the machine shop, there will be an entertainment space and kitchen added. So, while we are stepping away from commercial vegetable production and the vegetable CSA next year, we are definitely planning on many future on-farm events.

We continue to stay committed to our mission – to serve the community through farming – and continue to develop the farm into a sustainable business. We can only serve the community by being an economically viable farm business, and because of many factors, growing commercial vegetables has not worked. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to increase raising grazing animals, and sustainable meats have a robust demand locally and in the Bay Area, such that we have a chance at farming full-time and achieving our personal goals (family, health care, down time, etc.)

We hope to see many of you at next week’s distribution, if we arrive around the same time. We love connecting with the individuals who not only eat our food but support us spiritually and financially. We’ll definitely have another communication with you all before the end of the month.

Happy Autumn! Fall time greeted us with our first rain over the weekend and a distinct chill in the air. The rain came down extremely hard at one point Saturday afternoon, and it looked like the soils at all our leased properties soaked up quite a bit of moisture. The hillsides are noticeably turning color to lovely oranges, red, and browns, and our sheep’s coats are growing thicker. Just as our slicer tomatoes are finally starting to ripen, the rain plumped them up a bit, resulting in some cracking. We harvested the best Cherokee Purple and Pink Beauties, but you probably noticed some cracking. Heirloom varieties already tend to crack easily.

This week’s sugar pie pumpkins, called Sugar Baby, are a sure sign of fall. With all the Halloween swag in the stores now, it seems appropriate 🙂 Unlike jack-o-lantern pumpkins, these are less stringy and better for baking. AllRecipes.com has good pointers on how to cook pumpkin by baking, boiling, or even microwaving. http://allrecipes.com/howto/baking-with-fresh-pumpkin/ There are lots of sweet things you can make with sugar pie pumpkin like muffins, bread, and cheesecake. Find some inspiring recipes here http://food52.com/recipes/search?q=pumpkin

This time of the year, we still don’t have much time for baking, so we will most likely just cut up and roast our pumpkin with some kind of roast. To do this, you cut the top and stem off, scoop out the seeds, and cube up the remaining meat. We coat the pumpkin in olive oil and roast it like winter squash or root vegetables. The seeds, you can season and bake for a snack.

Notes from the Field

We are well into fall cropping now. In the past few weeks, we have been realizing some shifts in the farm. Earlier in the season, we were planning on planting the fall season vegetables in part of the 2-acre field (Field F, one of 2 of our veg fields) at 3WG Ranch in Potter Valley. However, we learned from the landlord that he will be selling that 2-acre field to the county for mitigation. The county is widening East Road in Potter Valley and thus are purchasing mitigation land. Field F is right by the river, and incidentally has been the best vegetable field for us because it has great drainage and good fertility. Drainage is especially important in spring, when planting needs to happen on time.

It doesn’t make sense for us to plant there and invest any more fertility or labor into improving that field, so we switched up our fall/winter plan. We will now have a couple beds in the other field (Field B) at 3WG with fall plantings. This field has some summer plants, and those couple beds with fall veg are close to the packing shed. We also are putting some of the fall veg at the Coyote Field at Heart Arrow Ranch (the hillside garden which is more labor-intensive to farm).

Our plan will be to plant hay in Field F until it is unavailable for us to farm. Losing access to Field F – the best 2 acres for veg at this property – is a big blow to our vegetable growing. It took a long time for us to find good valley farmland for vegetables, and losing this field for future planting makes it hard for us. While we could search for more arable vegetable growing land, we’re at a point in our lives and business that we deem it too challenging to “start over” with the vegetables and instead, we need to focus on the enterprises that have better potential. In our quest to be full-time farmers, we have learned that, for a variety of reasons, that for vegetables, we need to be farming at least 5 acres to be a financially sustainable venture. After this season, we have decided to scale back our vegetable growing to Heart Arrow Ranch, where the land access is secure, and focus on just a half-acre garden at the Coyote Field.

Spring Vegetables in Field F at 3WG Ranch in Potter Valley, back in early June 2013

We have been talking with our landlord at Heart Arrow Ranch about development there. The Goldens are installing solar on the new livestock barn, as well as a solar water pump for the Coyote Field garden. This winter, much more rangeland will get fenced for pasture areas. We have already staked out half of the Coyote Field that is going to get planted to table grapes, more stone fruit, berries, and hedgerows. And right now, our friend Tonia is building a corn crib there for the heirloom dent corn we are growing together this year.

Mark your calendar for Saturday, October 12! We will be having a harvesting party in Potter Valley, to harvest the Oaxacan Green Corn. You can see where we grew the potatoes, winter squash, and melons in that same field! More details will come.

Looking at our harvest logs from last year, we started getting cherry tomatoes two weeks early this year! It’s a mix of Sungolds, Chadwick, and crosses thereof. A big misconception about tomatoes is that they ripen when it is hot out during the day. However, it is the warm nights that ripen tomatoes. Have you noticed that evenings have been warmer than usual? We have noticed verasion of Heart Arrow Ranch zinfandel earlier this year as well… We are big fans of chopping up tomatoes and tossing them in our cooking, whether it be pasta or a mixed veggie dish.

Here is an unusual recipe – zucchini butter! This is great for breakfast on toast.

Here is a recipe for eggplant that we are excited to try from Spain…A Culinary Road Trip (HarperCollins 2008) by Mario Batoli and Gwyneth Paltrow – Fried Eggplant. The book notes that eggplant becomes very crispy on the outside and very creamy on the inside when you fry it. And of course, they recommend that you use Spanish olive oil, but we’re sure a Mendocino olive oil will work, too. This recipe calls for one large eggplant, but you just need enough to cut into a big pile of “sticks.”

Heat the olive oil to 365 in a large deep skillet. Beat the eggs in a wide shallow bowl. Put the bread crumbs in another shallow bowl. Working in batches, dip the eggplant in the eggs and then in the bread crumbs, turning to coast, and add to the hot oil, without crowding. Fry until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels, sprinkle with salt, and serve.

Notes from the Field

If you haven’t noticed, we have inadvertently started to send newsletters every other week instead of every week. We hope that you don’t mind. Farmers are not super busy just because we have so much to do in the fields on the farm. The unromantic side of farming requires just as much time and attention – fostering good relationships with our landlords, talking with other farmers or our local UC Cooperative Extension agent for advice, and catching up with bookkeeping are just a few of the things that have to get done but aren’t directly related to production.

Last Tuesday, after the Ukiah deliveries, we took 30 trays of fall brassica seedlings to Noyo Food Forest in Fort Bragg. It was nice to catch up with the farmer/educator, Gowan, and hear how things are going with her own farming pursuits and Eat Mendocino. Then on Wednesday, we drove south to San Rafael to pick up a used 2004 Dodge Sprinter van with a refrigerated cargo space. We actually did today’s Ukiah deliveries with this van! The walls are that white plastic food grade material, and the floor is stainless steel, so the whole interior is washable. With help from Golden Vineyards, we need this van because we do not have a distributor for our meat to San Francisco anymore. This has been terrible for our farm sales this year, so we will now be delivering that meat ourselves. One of your fellow CSA members, Kathryn Quanbeck, wrote a good backgrounder on this distribution issue that affects many small-scale sustainable ranchers in the North Bay and North Coast. http://civileats.com/2013/04/17/distribution-problem-hinders-local-beef-in-ca/ With new investments into our meat enterprises – new barns, new hay mower, hay baler, and now a delivery van – this raises a question for us as to where it is more worthwhile for us to invest our time and labor in the future.

Finished compost made at Heart Arrow Ranch was moved to 3WG Ranch in Potter Valley. We will be amending the fall vegetable field with the compost. We just sent in a water sample of the well water at that property; we are required to test our wash water for organic certification every year, to ensure that your organic produce is “safe”. We are falling a little behind in trellising all the tomatoes, along with weeding, so we need to catch up. The winter squash, melons, and water melons are growing well but not close to being ready yet. We also mulched the field cucumbers so that when we flood irrigate, the fruits aren’t resting on the wet soil, which would rot them.

Have you checked out this Local Food Time Ticker info graphic?http://www.thelandconnection.org/resources-for-producers/infographic/#.UgGrBGT0YbA Share it with your friends – it depicts the nutritional value we reap in eating freshly-picked local produce. Everything in your CSA share was harvested either this morning or on Monday. Once you harvest a vegetable, it starts to die and lose nutritional value. We take post harvest handling very seriously, so once a crop is harvested, washed, and packed, it goes into refrigeration asap to slow the vegetable’s “dying.” The refrigerated van also ensures that in transit to Ukiah (okay, it’s only 12 miles), your CSA shares stay cool.

We hope that everyone had a great July 4 holiday! We had a fun barbecue last Thursday with folks from a San Francisco restaurant, Bar Agricole, that has an RSA (Restaurant-Supported Agriculture) arrangement with us. Community-supported agriculture comes in many forms, and we are truly grateful for the commitment and support.

This last planting of spring broccoli has magically b(l)oomed this week! Cabbage and other brassicas are also in abundance.

Seeing that there is so much fruit in season, mix it up with your vegetables for a healthy summer dish! We love the strawberries at the Ukiah Saturday Farmers Market and are anxious to try this gem of a recipe from “The Diva Dish”:

In a separate small bowl whisk together salad dressing, then pour over top of salad.

Can serve immediately, or will do great in the fridge for when ready to serve.
(If serving later, add in coconut just before serving)

Have you tried making green smoothies yet? If you have a blender, give it a whirl! Rather than juicing, with green smoothies, you still get the good fiber from your veggies. It’s so easy to get berries (fresh, then freeze them; or frozen already), peaches, and other fruit, and blend them with a combination of your CSA vegetables. We don’t recommend the potatoes for the smoothie, though.

The big 22-acre field of hay has finally gotten cut and is getting raked today. Then it will get baled and picked up out of the field. We are soooo relieved that our certified-organic grass hay will not go to waste. Driving tractor can get pretty boring, but it’s also a good time to meditate and think about the farm.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we are giving a workshop to the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians about farm planning, marketing, CSA, and more. This is part of a grant that the Tribe received to revive agriculture in their communities. We are excited to make new connections and share our knowledge. Adam will also be giving a workshop at the Not-So-Simple Living Fair at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds in Boonville on Sunday, July 28. NSSLF is a weekend of hands-on workshops and demonstrations celebrating rural living and homesteading skills, July 26, 27 & 28. Adam will be discussing “Whole Farm Fertility Planning” – designing your farm to be fertility self-sufficient. The schedule has yet to be posted, but you can see what workshops and events will take place http://www.notsosimple.info/ Tonia, the woman with whom we are growing field corn, will be leading a tortilla-making workshop!

The first of the tomatoes are just starting to ripen, and looking into our crystal ball, the summer squash should be ready soon, too. We are battling spider mites on the cucumbers in the high tunnel, but the field cucumbers are growing fine. It looks like it will continue to be warm – 80s and 90s Farenheit. Hope you are enjoying summer!

Whew, it’s hot! Since our office has no air conditioning and it’s just as warm in here as it is outside, we’re going to keep this brief.

In Your Share This Week

Romaine Lettuce

Dino Kale

Swiss Chard

Cauliflower

New Potatoes

Green Cabbage

We have greens – perfect for refreshing salads. Chop up the kale with the cabbage for a yummy coleslaw. I can’t remember where I got this Coleslaw Dressing recipe, but I love it. After you chop up your cabbage (and kale, maybe?) mix these ingredients together and dress it:

1 cup mayonnaise

3 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp milk

1 tbsp salt

1/4 tsp dry mustard

1/4 tsp celery seed

Chill it in the fridge, and voila, a crunchy light meal or side dish.

It might be too warm to do try this Cauliflower-Cheese Pie recipe during the week, but if it cools down enough to use the oven, this sounds delicious. It’s from Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook (Ten Speed Press Berkeley, 1992).

Convenience Tips: Use food processor with grating attachment to grate cheese, potato, and onion in that order. (No need to clean in between.) Prepare the filling while the crust bakes.

Crust:

2 cups (packed) grated raw potato

1/4 cup grated onion

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg white, lightly beaten

flour for your fingers

a little oil

Filling:

1 tbs olive oil or butter

1 cup chopped onion

2 medium sloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp salt

black pepper to taste

1/2 tsp basil

1/4 tsp thyme

1 medium cauliflower, in small pieces

2 eggs (or 1 whole egg plus 1 egg white)

1/4 cup (packed) grated cheddar

paprika

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Oil a 9-inch pie pan.

Combine grated potato and onion, salt, and egg white in a small bowl and mix well. Transfer to the pie pan and pat into place with lightly floured fingers, building up the sides into a handsome edge.

Bake for 30 minutes, then brush the crust with a little oil and bake it 10 more minutes. Remove from oven, and turn the temperature down to 375 degrees.

Heat the olive oil or butter in a large skillet. Add onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs, and saute over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add cauliflower, stir, and cover. Cook until tender, stirring occasionally (about 8 to 10 minutes).

Spread half the cheese onto the baked crus (OK if it’s still hot). Spoon the sauteed vegetables on top, then sprinkle on the remaining cheese. Beat the eggs and milk together, and pour this over the top. Dust lightly witih paprika.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until set. Serve hot or warm.

Next week, we will harvest carrots and beets again. There will probably be more cabbage, as well as potatoes. The summer squash should be coming on very soon.

Field Notes

It is hot. We keep wondering when it will cool down.

In other news, we have decided to go out and purchase our own hay making equipment as we have been very unsuccessful in finding someone to reliably make hay for us. This way, we can cut our hay exactly when we need it to be cut, which will benefit the whole farm – the livestock waiting for pasture, our friends wanting to purchase quality organic hay, and our cashflow (in the longrun). If it weren’t so hot, we would probably start cutting our second field this week. In the meantime, we are keeping everything well watered.
Eat well,

This week’s harvest comes on a very unusually wet June day. We harvested half of the vegetables, including the potatoes, on Monday, and did the other half today, Tuesday.

You have Colorado Rose new potatoes – a pretty red-skinned potato with yellow flesh. We did not wash or rinse the dirt off of them this time, as they seemed to have especially delicate skin when we were harvesting them. As mentioned last week, it is generally recommended that you don’t wash new potatoes until you are ready to use them.

This rainy weather motivated us pull out the crock pot Sunday night. We simmered lamb breast (you can find it at UNF Co-op in the frozen meat section), some potatoes, chopped carrots, broccoli, and kale with various seasonings. Crock pots are great for those root crops, including the beets, although the beets might turn the dish magenta 😉

As we write, the rain is really coming down now. We have not stressed enough how unusual – how out of rhythm – the weather has been. If periodic rain in the summer is going to be normal, we wish someone could tell us so we can plan on it. We are a little worried about our durum wheat in Ukiah getting rained on, but the days are supposed to heat up as the week goes on, and we’re crossing our fingers that the grain will dry out quickly. Once again, just like with the hay harvest, we are relying on someone else to harvest our grain as we don’t have a combine yet. We are in the process of purchasing one in Humboldt County and just need to pay it off and do a little mechanical work on it. But for now, we are talking with a couple local people who can either harvest it for us or let us use their combine.

Last week, we sold and delivered some hay to the Philo Apple Farm; Sophia, who is about our age, manages draft horses there. Talking with her father, Tim, the apple orchard is doing well. He brought us up to date on some organic practices that are costly management-wise, but over the next few years, they should see an increase in fresh-eating apple production. (They make cider with the cosmetically-imperfect apples. Selling fresh-eating apples is more profitable than making cider.) He mentioned that even after farming for 30 years, they still struggle with cashflow – covering production costs before they’ve sold any product. So, if you signed up for a Pome Fruit Share, you are helping ease that cashflow crunch for another local farmer!

Last we looked online, the temperatures are going to rise significantly over the course of this week. Even after all this rain, we’ll probably be irrigating a lot this weekend to keep crops cool!

This past week has been beautiful spring weather – sunshine, blue skies, afternoon breeze – which is ironic, as Summer officially begins this Thursday. The Summer Solstice is a turning point in the growing season as the days will start to get shorter. This is basically the deadline to get any summer crops in the ground, and time to start planning the fall plantings.

In case you are unfamiliar with new potatoes, just to let you know: these will not keep in storage. You will notice that they have delicate, thin skin, so don’t hold onto them for longer than the other vegetables. While some places recommend not washing them, we gently spray the dirt off of them and let them dry before we pack them. This variety of potato is called Carola, and as a “new potato,” you should find them sweeter and perhaps more buttery than “old potatoes.”

Last night, we tried the potatoes cut up very small and sauteed in oil with chopped up broccoli, carrots, and bacon. You can also simply boil them and enjoy with butter and seasoning.

A Portuguese recipe, called caldo verde (green broth) in Portual, where cabbage is often substituted for the kale.

Kale

Potatoes

2 quarts water

1 tsp salt

Optional: 1 garlic sausage

Extra virgin olive oil

Cut the kale leaves, without stems, into a chiffonade. Chop the potatoes very fine. Bring the water to a boil with the salt. Add the chopped potatoes, return to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the kale and cook 2 minutes more. Taste for seasoning. If desired, serve with sliced garlic sausage heated briefly in the soup and a splash of the olive oil.

Note: The proportion of kale to potatoes in this soup is not terribly important. Nor do you need to chop the potatoes; but if you slice them, they will need to cook a little longer before you can add the kale.

Field Notes

It looks like we’re going to harvest our own fava bean seeds to replant. We’re trellising the greenhouse cucumbers and should have some to harvest soon. We’re wrapping up summer planting, and everything looks good. We’re preparing to start fall planting, so we’ll be assessing our seed inventory.

When we’re trying to grow food for most of the year, we have to stay on top of our planting schedule. Each season is unique and has its challenges. For the fall harvest, most of the crops are cool weather crops, and it’s not very cool in the summer time when we’re trying to grow them. So we grow a diversity of crops to hedge the risk if something does not grow well.

We’re still taking sign-ups for the Fall Vegetable CSA Season. It’s for the 6 weeks following the Main Season (4 weeks in November, 2 in December), and it’s $120. Let us know if you’re interested and haven’t signed up already!